Tag Archives: why not

Here is a riddle from Jed McKenna’s “Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment”:

– Pretend there’s a big red button on the counter, okay?
– Okay.
– If you press it, you kill everyone in Switzerland.
– Okay.
– If you press it, no one will ever know. You’ll never be blamed or connected to the deaths of all those millions of nice Swiss people.
– Yeah? So?
– So why not press it?

Indeed, why not press the big red button that kills everyone in Switzerland?

I am trying to think for myself but I do not see any reason not to. Funny thing is, I do not see any reason to do it either. When there are no external influences and motivations, basically, I am becoming neutral to this action. Unless there would be an additional compelling reason to do or not to do, I am in the undecided point. The problem with that is that “undecided” is equivalent to “not do” and that is by itself a bias.

The problem is that my ego feels quite happy when I decide not to kill them all, not to push the button. It feels equally happy when I think to myself that I do not have any reason to push the button and I do not have any reason not to push the button, resulting effectively in me doing nothing, i.e. not pushing the button. The result for the ego feels exactly the same.

If my task is to nuke the ego, to bring it to an end, I probably must make the situation really uncomfortable for the ego, bring it to an untenable position. And the only way to do that in this particular simulation is to press the button. So, in the end, there may be a compelling reason to press that button, apparently. Interesting.… -->